Lost Boys Read online

  “How many times have you gone?” I asked.

  “Four,” said Kamran, his eyes on his feet. When he raised his eyes, he looked straight at us and lowered his voice. “We aren’t supposed to talk about it, but I won’t lie to you guys. It’s hell. Lots of guys die there, or are captured and sent to prisoner-of-war camps in Iraq.”

  “Kamran,” a boy yelled from several tables over, “bring that lucky head over here.”

  He gave us a small wave and said, “Anyway, welcome aboard. See you around.”

  * * *

  Later the camp was quiet, but I couldn’t sleep. I sat outside the tent and watched the stars. Since Dad died, then Uncle, sometimes it felt like death was all I thought of, but I’d never really thought it could happen to me—or to Ebi.

  The tent flap rustled and Ebi sat down, his new red-and-white scarf hanging around his neck.

  “It cools down, huh?” he asked, but I didn’t think he really wanted an answer.

  So I said, “I can barely find the constellations with all these stars—so different from home.”

  A huge shooting star sped across the sky. We both watched but didn’t say anything.

  “Rez, what have I gotten us into? All those bodies.”

  “I know. It was…” I didn’t know what it was so I let the sentence sit between us.

  “You knew it wasn’t going to be like the movies, didn’t you?” Ebi said quietly.

  “I guess.”

  “Remember when we used to play soldiers in the park?”

  “Sure.”

  “Remember that huge tree?”

  “How we were so scared of climbing it?” I finished his thought.

  “Exactly.” Ebi scrubbed his face with his hand. “But this is the real thing, isn’t it?”

  I let my breath out slowly. “You mean something real to be scared of?”

  “Exactly.” He picked up a handful of sand and let it drain through his fingers. “If you knew, why did you come?”

  “To be somewhere other than home,” I answered, scooping up a handful of sand myself. “To be with you.”

  “But what if we both get killed?”

  The question hung in the dry air, feeding the fear we were learning to name. Maybe it was better to have it spoken. We could joke about it now. I said, “Well, then we’ll go to heaven and have all the girls and money and anything else we want—right?” I lightly punched his arm.

  Ebi looked up at the sparkling sky. “Maybe I should’ve asked before we got here, but do you believe in all that? Do you believe God is watching us right now?”

  A desert owl hoot-hooted in the distance. I said, “When I asked Uncle about heaven he said some people call it ‘a home that will last.’ That seems more believable to me than the huge mansions and stuff. I know I should believe it. Mother sure does. I guess you don’t get proof until you’re dead.”

  I pulled my jacket closer, and one of my favorite tunes floated through my head. “What I don’t get is how God can make music and pomegranates and killing, too.”

  I felt Ebi nod beside me. “I wish there was a holy man I could ask, but I’d be afraid to.”

  The canvas behind us flapped in the gentle breeze.

  “We’d better get some sleep,” I said. As we turned toward the tent, I smelled the desert finally giving up some of its heat for the morning dew.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A clanging bell woke us early the next morning. Breakfast was bread, butter, sand, and jam. Soon after we sat down, a young officer rapped us on the backs of our heads.

  “Outside in ten minutes. Line up behind tent four.”

  Dozens of us shuffled into line. The breeze of the night before was gone, like a ghost you swear you saw but doubted at first light. We were there for a rally, a repeat of the one we’d heard at school, but these soldiers looked hollow and worn around the edges, as if their words had been recorded years ago and now the tape was stretched and brittle.

  As they talked about the glorious struggle, we cheered and waved our fists in the air, but we glanced sideways at each other and quickly looked away.

  Then as Kamran had warned, for weeks we sat in one place or another—mostly waiting. Every few days we were told stories of Hussain ibn Ali, the Prophet’s grandson, who stood alone against an army of thousands. We joined in the call to prayer. We got used to the gritty food. We listened to gunfire far off in the distance.

  The World Cup would start in about two months. What with the revolution and the war, Iran had pulled out, but we still talked about who was going to be in it. Every time a truck came in with new recruits, we grilled them for scores. Once we were even allowed to listen to part of a game on the radio. But most days we traded stories with boys from other towns, and when no one was looking we played cards for coins we didn’t have.

  New recruits came in every day, and almost as often thirty to forty guys loaded into trucks and went to the front. Kamran was right; most of them didn’t come back, and those who did didn’t talk about it. One day as we watched a dozen boys limp back into camp, Ebi asked something I’d been wondering. “How come so many die? Are the Iraqis that much better than us? Do our guns suck?”

  “They’re probably not all dead. Remember, Kamran said some end up in POW camps.”

  “That sounds worse than dying,” said Ebi. “Especially if you believe the stuff about the mansions and the girls.”

  One morning an older soldier took us to the far end of camp for shooting practice. The Kalashnikov rifle felt like a cannon by the time we had walked the full length of the camp with the guns on our shoulders.

  The first time I pulled the trigger, the butt of the big gun slammed back so hard, I staggered. After half a dozen tries, I stood without falling, but the bullet rarely hit the target. Ebi was no better.

  “And I thought this would be fun,” he said as we made our way back to our tent after the practice.

  “Remember the time Uncle Habib took us to the country to shoot BB guns?”

  “I remember, Maggot. Now, that was fun.” He shifted his gun from one shoulder to the other and groaned. “Those little guns and these honkers are not made on the same planet.”

  “Right,” I said, looking for a comfortable hold on my own gun. “I feel like I could practice for months but I wouldn’t be any better until I grew six inches. These are just too big.”

  A few days went by, but we didn’t use the big rifles again. Ebi asked, “You think we stunk so bad they decided we were hopeless?”

  “Maybe they’ll train us with smaller guns,” I said. But there was no more training until the day of the European Cup final. They made ten of us go to machine gun training, even though most of the camp got to gather around a radio in the mess hall.

  “I can’t believe we have to miss this game,” Ebi said as he kicked up dust. “They may not let us listen to another.”

  “I bet Kamran that Peter Withe would score at least one goal.”

  The captain came up behind us. “All right, men. Enough talking. Lie flat on your stomachs behind a gun, upper bodies resting on your forearms.” We lay down. The ground underneath us was cracked and scaled like lizard skin.

  “That’s right,” said the captain. “Now support the barrel on the short metal legs and hold the other end near your face.”

  The gun was easier to shoot than the rifle, but with every rat-a-tat-tat, my eyes and nose filled with yellow dirt. I held my breath so my mouth wouldn’t fill up, too. As we trudged back to camp afterward, I swore to myself that if I ever got to see actors using machine guns in a movie again, I’d figure out how they made it look so easy.

  “I wonder which gun we’ll carry to the front,” said Ebi.

  “All I want right now is to get this crud out of my eyes. I need another shower.”

  At home I took a shower whenever I wanted, but here we only got one shower a week on a preassigned day. The trip to the shooting range had left us hot and caked with grit. Our shower had been the day before, and the thi
rty seconds we got at the communal sink today wasn’t going to do the job. After we washed, we moved a little way off to sit under a lean-to. From there we could see the heads of the lucky boys showering.

  “This is torture to watch,” said Ebi. Each shower was in a small wooden enclosure. On the outside of the door, grungy uniforms hung on a row of hooks.

  “I was hoping some spray would come our way if we sat close enough,” I said.

  Kamran appeared and sat next to us. “Excellent, just the men I’ve been looking for.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I’ve got a job for you—something I’ve been thinking of doing for days, but I need help. Are you guys up for a little prank?”

  “What kind of prank?” I asked.

  “When the next group of lucky fools comes in to wash, we run along the outside of the stalls and grab their clothes. We dump them at the door of the mess tent and speed back here in time to see the reaction.”

  There was a glint in Ebi’s eyes I hadn’t seen for weeks.

  “What if we get caught?” I asked, looking around for an authority figure.

  “I’m not worried,” said Kamran. “What are they going to do, send us home?”

  “Point,” said Ebi, smiling.

  “Okay then, get up and be ready on my mark.” He gestured to the end of the stalls. “Make sure you grab the towels, too.”

  After the next set of boys trooped into the showers, Kamran whispered, “Wait until they’re soapy.”

  I still wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but Ebi pulled me up, saying, “Come on, man. We could use some fun.”

  A minute later Kamran whispered, “Okay, follow my lead.”

  Before I knew it, my arms held four of the stiff canvas uniforms and towels. I followed Ebi and Kamran, flying around the tents. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. As we came up to the mess tent, I heard someone yell, “Hey, you boys, what’s the meaning of this?”

  Panic and the rush of adrenaline shared space in my throat.

  Kamran yelled, “Drop them here and keep running! Heads down and follow me.” He ran fast for someone so short, and I sprinted to keep up with him. Within seconds the three of us landed in a heap under the lean-to, panting and laughing.

  The boy in the first shower reached over the enclosure, eyes closed, for his towel. His hand flailed in the air. A second later all the boys realized their clothes and towels were gone.

  “What the…”

  “Hey, who took my stuff?”

  Shouts and accusations filled the air.

  A crowd gathered. The three of us laughed harder than we had in months. Boys streamed out of the showers all at once, some trying to hide themselves as they ran, others not bothering. Someone yelled, “Mess tent, suckers,” and the clump of naked bodies headed in that direction.

  By dinner everyone knew who’d pulled off the trick. We sat with Kamran, enjoying a meal complete with jabs and winks and the rubbing of Kamran’s head.

  * * *

  A few days later, Kamran found us in the shade of our tent in the late afternoon. His eyes were on the horizon over our shoulders.

  “Well, boys, I guess I’ll rub my own head.” He ruffled his haphazard hair. We both swiveled to look at him. “They’re shipping me out again tomorrow morning.”

  “You’d better come back, man,” I said. “This camp would be totally boring without you here.”

  Ebi skipped a rock across the sand. “I heard them talking at lunch. They’re moving a lot of people next week.”

  “Guess that means we might go, too.” I looked off into the wavering heat.

  “Hey, Kamran,” Ebi said, throwing another rock. “Maybe we should rub your head, in case we get orders while you’re gone.”

  “I’m not saying good-bye. I’ll see you in a few days and we’ll think of a new prank to pull,” Kamran said. I ran my palm across his spiky head. Ebi did the same. Kamran leaned back, stretching at the waist from side to side. “And if I don’t make it back here, assume I just got sent somewhere else. Come look me up when you get to Tehran.” He bowed and turned away.

  We watched until he disappeared behind a tent at the other end of camp.

  “I almost wish we could go with him,” said Ebi. “I’m going crazy doing nothing here, and somehow I think Kam could even make dying fun.”

  Two days later we were walking toward the mess tent when a covered truck full of soldiers pulled up. I recognized some of the guys who had shipped out with Kamran.

  Like a line of ants, guys in grimy uniforms slowly marched toward the tents. There were bandages and wrapped wrists and ankles. None of them looked at one another or at any of us. When the last boy filed off and it wasn’t Kamran, Ebi raced to the truck and peered in to make sure.

  I grabbed the arm of an older boy near the end of the line. “Do you know Kamran?”

  The boy gave me a dull look. “Everyone knows Kamran.”

  “He’s not here?” Ebi said in a stunned tone.

  “No,” said the boy.

  “Is he…?” I couldn’t finish the question.

  “No one knows,” said the boy. “We didn’t find him, but he didn’t come back with us, either.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered. The boy nodded and walked away.

  We went to dinner but couldn’t eat. Finally I said, “It doesn’t mean he’s gone, Ebi. He said we’d find him in Tehran after this is over.”

  “I guess.” The sadness in his voice was peppered with something else. It sounded like the same thing I felt, the thing that made me want to put my head on the table and cover it with my arms and stay that way for a long time.

  As we sat silently, an officer came into the tent and paced from table to table, handing out slips of paper. Ebi and I looked at each other. Without a word, we knew.

  “Our orders,” I said.

  “Maybe we’ll be back for the first games of the Cup,” Ebi said as he pushed his plate aside.

  “What if we walked out?” I said. “We could find some small town, some family to take us in. You think they’d miss us here?”

  Ebi laughed, but I was half-serious.

  Every few tables the officer stopped and leaned over, delivered the paper, and said a few words. I remembered something I’d read in a book—“His blood ran cold.” By the time the officer came to our table, I knew what those words meant. I squeezed Ebi’s hand on the bench between us. The man said our names and told us what time to report. We’d only been in this training camp for a few weeks. Nothing about me was trained for what we might face at the front.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Lucky you,” said one of our tent mates. “You get a second shower this week.”

  “I guess they want you to be clean when you face the enemy,” said another.

  “Ebi, give me back that deck of cards before you get out of here,” said a third.

  It took us no time to pack. By lunch we were gone. Before sunset we laid out blankets in another camp.

  This place wasn’t much more than an overnight camping spot, an oasis with a few palm trees in the middle of dunes and more dunes as far as we could see. Dinner was cold, served straight from cans, and the only choice of drink was warm, sandy water. A group gathered around and talked, but Ebi and I headed for our blankets. This camp had no tents, only tarps pulled over open trenches. I tried not to think of a grave as I lay down. I closed my eyes and pictured Aunt Azar’s garden with its troughs of rich dirt where I helped plant vegetables every spring. Who would help her this year?

  “Weird.” Ebi finally spoke. “The truck with all the guns didn’t come with us.”

  “Maybe it’s coming in the morning.”

  We heard shots in the distance—much clearer here than at the old camp. There were several minutes of a volley back and forth.

  “Hear that?” Ebi pushed himself up on his elbows.

  “Hear what? All I hear are the birds singing in the almond groves of Shiraz.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Now I hear that,
too.” Ebi gave a hollow laugh and lowered himself.

  A few minutes passed, then Ebi said, “If we get sent to different places, or if we get captured, we’ll find each other, right?”

  Reaching over in the dark, I rubbed his head. “It’s a promise, idiot.”

  “Even if it’s not until we get home. We’ll go to the market, watch girls…” Ebi’s voice trailed off.

  “Count on it.”

  We lay without talking for a long time, and in the morning I wasn’t sure I’d fallen asleep.

  I watched the sun come up behind peach-colored cotton-ball clouds on the horizon. Breakfast tasted worse than dinner. Everyone shuffled around without conversation.

  After a second cup of tea, I sat back down beside Ebi. “Next time we’re getting ready for a football match and I act nervous, will you remind me about this morning?”

  He snorted. “We thought those games were life and death.”

  “Next time we’ll know better.”

  We were loaded onto a truck with oversized tires made to handle the desert and drove down a narrow track for less than fifteen minutes. Piling out, we were on top of a dune, surrounded by hot sand. An encampment lay in the distance, and I thought I saw a town just beyond that, but the horizon shimmered in the heat, blurring my vision.

  “Is that what we’re trying to take?” asked a small boy, pointing to the encampment.

  “It is,” replied the soldier who’d driven us. “It’s not as far as it looks. We’ll charge them together. When we take that camp, we’ll bring more troops in and attack the town in a few days.”

  As he spoke two other trucks arrived. Within minutes sixty of us stood looking at one another. We were all teenagers. Wouldn’t our odds be better if there were some soldiers with experience here? I tried to push away the panic creeping up from the soles of my feet.

  “We need you in three rows—twenty across. We’ll carry your weapons until we get a little closer,” said a soldier.

  A driver unloaded rifles, but when he finished, no more than a dozen leaned against the truck. Ebi stood in the row in front of me.